STYLES OF COMMUNICATION
by ArLyne Diamond, Ph.D.

It's been my experience as a consultant that most of the conflict between people in the workplace stem not from misogyny or laziness, but due to frustration brought about by lack of communication. Let me give you some examples of events I've been involved with and how easily they were cleared up with open communication.

After an hour and a half of setting up the process and equipment needed for a specific kind of wafer, the women on the assembly line finally started to fabricate wafers. They hadn't been at it for an hour when one of the mangers came over and asked them to change over to produce an entirely different wafer.

Groaning and grumbling, they responded, "Not again! Management must be crazy and totally disorganized." These women were convinced that these frequent changes, represented stupidity or malice on the part of the executives. Changing the line caused them a great deal of unnecessary work and made for unnecessary delays in production.

When the complaints from the assembly workers became so intense they came to the attention of the CEO and I was brought in to "fix" the problem.

Bringing the workers together, I quickly learned that their frustrations stemmed from their belief that management was capriciously making these last minute switches and therefore could no longer be respected and trusted. Further, production was going down and it would mean a loss of bonus to these women.

I researched the reasons for the changing decisions and with the assistance of one of the marketing executives, we offered an explanation.

Since this was a fairly small boutique semi-conductor company, sales were often guaranteed by being time sensitive to the needs of the customers. Big sales were often "closed"

by offering customers immediate delivery of a small percentage of the products they were purchasing. This extra service often produced a much larger sale of products that would be produced in the proper order in the pipeline. Without giving the customer the few hundred wafers "yesterday" (as soon as humanly possible) the larger order would probably have been given to another vendor.

Bob, the Marketing Manager recruited, not only explained the importance of time to closing the deal; he also apologized profusely for the frustration and confusion. This mattered a great deal to the assembly workers.

We also convinced finance to give these workers a special extra payment (although small) each time they had to change the wafer-fab setup during the day in the middle of a pre-planned run.

Everyone was happy. Production improved and the Sales Manager made it a point to personally thank the women each time their cooperation resulted in an unusually big order - sometimes even with flowers or a box of candy.

Another situtation, in the same semi-conductor company, was one that almost resulted in some valued employees being fired because it appeared as though they were goofing off too much.

In this case, complaints had been made to the H.R. Director alleging that a specific group of women were taking too many breaks, because they were often seen in the coffee room or out in the parking lot chatting and having cigarettes. Although the H.R. Director had "counseled them" (meaning lectured them rather than problem-solving with them) and threatened to suspend them, the "goofing off" behavior continued.

Rather than firing the women I was asked if I could find out why they had this recently developed attitude problem.

I talked WITH them, rather than AT them. I asked them what was going on. I went with them into their environment and together we discovered the reason for their frequent need to get up and move about. Apparently, some months prior to my intervention, they been assigned a new work area. It was a large room without windows. In the succeeding months, extra space in the room had been filled with stacked boxes. These women were becoming claustrophobic.

We had the boxes removed. We requested that no new boxes be placed in this area. We purchased some large posters of oceans and mountains. The claustrophobia was greatly reduced. The women didn't need to keep leaving the room. Their production went up. Management was delighted. I was seen as a "miracle worker" when in fact, all I did was open up communication and listen carefully. I took their complaints seriously.

Another example of how easily conflict can be resolved when people's concerns are taken seriously involved a particular group of technicians who were ready to go to war with the engineers with whom they worked. They felt the engineers were deliberately disrespecting them. When the Director of Engineering, to whom they initially complained asked for specific examples, they couldn't provide them. Their collective opinion was that it was a lot of little things.
Unfortunately, the Director of Engineering lost patience with this lack of "proof" and told the technicians they were just jealous and to "get back to work."

When the tension between the two groups became untenable, I was asked to intervene. Instead of interrogating, I looked and listened. Again, a minor environmental change made all the difference.

The technicians' tables were lined up in such a way as to provide a shortcut for the engineers from one area to another. Frequently, an engineer would get paged for a phone call while passing through this area and would reach for the nearest phone. When writing something down he would pick the nearest pen and paper. Things would be accidentally moved. Chairs would wind up at another station. Sometimes technicians would be forced to stand around until the engineer was finished with his phone call.

The solution. A rearrangement of the furniture creating a separate path, with a table designated for a phone, paper and pens. We asked the engineers to be careful not to walk through the technician area, but to use the new path and table placed for their convenience. The engineers no longer were stepping on "the turf" of the technicians and accidentally moving and/or taking their stuff. The bad feelings were further reduced by bringing the two groups together and talking about what had happened and why it had happened.

Instead of punitive action being taken, with documentation and sanctions, we tried friendly conversation. Communication and cooperation allowed people's concerns to be taken seriously and simple accommodations made to their needs for comfort.

The simple lesson to be learned: Listen to what people have to say and let them participate in finding solutions, instead of playing judge, finding fault, criticizing, sanctioning and lecturing them.

Article Reprint: Tech Week - Column, November, 2000